New Products

Dietz & Dats Deli Snack Packs

Dietz & Watson introduces Dietz & Dats, a snack line featuring four protein-packed, grab-and-go snack packs filled with heart-healthy items. The snack packs include items such as cashews, almonds, dried cranberries and mangos paired with premium Dietz & Watson meats and artisan cheeses. Every pack comes with crunchy melba toast. Available nationwide, the line includes Hot Salami & Fontina, Milano Salami & Asiago, Chorizo & Pepper Jack, and Dried Salami & Provolone. The suggested retail price is $4.99 per pack.

DIETZ & WATSON • PHILADELPHIA • DIETZANDWATSON.COM

Sparkling Ice +Caffeine Watermelon Lemonade

Watermelon Lemonade joins the Sparkling Ice +Caffeine lineup. The new variety offers a burst of classic citrus blended with refreshing water for a sweet, yet tangy midday pick-me-up, according to the maker. The zero-sugar beverage contains 70 milligrams of caffeine with only five calories per serving. It is available nationwide in 16-ounce cans. Sparkling Ice +Caffeine Watermelon Lemonade is the seventh flavor added to the roster of +Caffeine beverages.

TALKING RAIN BEVERAGE CO. • PRESTON, WASH. • SPARKLINGICE.COM

Lily’s Sweets Gummies

The Hershey Co.’s Lily’s brand presents two new products: Lily’s Sweet Fruity Gummy Bear Friends and Lily’s Tart and Tasty Sour Gummy Worms. The naturally flavored gummy bears deliver a whimsical hint of nostalgia in raspberry, strawberry, orange and lemon flavors. The sour gummy worms feature a mix of lemon-raspberry and apple-peach flavors. Sold in 1.8-ounce bags, both products contain less than one gram of sugar. All Lily’s products are gluten free, fair trade certified, and made with non-GMO ingredients.

THE HERSHEY CO. • HERSHEY, PA. • LILYS.COM

Red Diamond Simple Sweet Teas

Red Diamond expands its Simple Sweet Tea line with new Peach and Watermelon varieties. The Simple Sweet Peach Tea tastes as though you’ve bitten into a juicy, ripe peach, while the Simple Sweet Watermelon Tea is both perfectly sweet and refreshing, according to the maker. Packaged in a filter bag with premixed sugar, the product eliminates the need to measure sugar, train staff on sugar-to-tea ratios, or stir undissolved sugar in the urn. The new varieties are available in 16-count cases with easy 1.5-gallon brewing instructions.

RED DIAMOND COFFEE & TEA • BIRMINGHAM, ALA. • REDDIAMOND.COM

Vynamic Digital Receipt

Diebold Nixdorf launches Vynamic Digital Receipt, a sustainable solution to reduce the amount of thermal paper receipts. Consumers can receive digital receipts via QR codes at the pointof-sale (POS) without the need to register or via the retailer’s app. Additionally, convenience store retailers can easily add accessible promotions and offers to strengthen customer loyalty, while significantly saving costs and reducing environmental impact. Diebold Nixdorf integrated Vynamic Digital Receipt into the POS solution ecosystem of its cloud-native Vynamic Retail Platform.

DIEBOLD NIXDORF • HUDSON, OHIO • DIEBOLDNIXDORF.COM/EN-US

Rich’s Fully Finished Iced Donuts

Rich Products introduces Fully Finished Iced Donuts that offer the taste and quality of freshly made donuts. The four iced donuts are easy to handle, ready to serve, and maintain fresh quality over an extended shelf life. The offering includes Chocolate Iced Yeast Ring Donut, Chocolate Iced Sprinkled Cake Ring Donut, White Iced Raspberry Jelly Donut, and Bavarian Creme Long John Donut. The product comes in a recyclable tray of six, with eight trays per case.

RICH PRODUCTS CORP. • BUFFALO, N.Y. • RICHS.COM

Hilco Popping Candy

Hilco is expanding its line of popping candy with two iconic brands: Kool-Aid and Warheads. Each peg bag contains three 0.24-ounce pouches in top brand flavors. Kool-Aid flavors include Tropical Punch, Grape and Cherry; Warheads sour flavors are Green Apple, Blue Raspberry and Watermelon. The three-packs carry a suggested retail price of $1.99 and ship in a 48-count master case. Single packs contain 0.33 ounces and are available in the same flavors. They carry a suggested retail price of 99 cents and ship in an 80-count master case.

HILCO• LOUISVILLE, KY. • HILCOUSA.COM

Vita Coco Coconut Juice

Vita Coco expands its beverage lineup with its first juice offering, Vita Coco Coconut Juice. Available in two varieties, Original with Pulp and Mango, Vita Coco Coconut Juice is gluten free and non-GMO. The hydrating and nutritious beverage offers a refreshing blend of coconut water and a burst of tropical flavors, according to the brand. The Original with Pulp variety contains 10 grams of sugar and 50 calories per 8 ounces. The Mango variety contains 17 grams of sugar and 80 calories per 8 ounces. Both come in 16.9-ounce aluminum cans.

THE VITA COCO CO. INC. • NEW YORK • VITACOCO.COM

Hi-Chew Infrusions Orchard Mix

Hi-Chew kicks its chewlets up a notch with the new Infrusions Orchard Mix. Infused with pockets of flavor, the treats come in three fruity offerings: Juicy Blood Orange, Juicy Peach and Juicy Strawberry. While maintaining Hi-Chew’s signature texture, Infrusions add more juiciness with infused concentrated apple puree and pieces of pectin jelly to mimic true-to-life fruity flavors. The Hi-Chew Infrusions Orchard Mix is offered in a 4-ounce standup pouch for a suggested retail price of $4.29 (varies per market).

MORINAGA AMERICA INC. • IRVINE, CALIF. • HI-CHEW.COM

ICE Cobotics Autonomous Scrubber

Launched by ICE Cobotics, the Cobi 18 is a small, autonomous floor scrubber that is available for less than $20 per day through an all-inclusive subscription. The user interface includes a “teach and repeat” feature that allows users to train a route once and then deploy it with the click of a button. Additional key features include: one charge, one fill for 90 to 120 minutes of scrubbing; compact and nimble, optimized for tight spaces and close-to-the-edge cleaning; squeegee and optional dry mop attachment; minimal daily maintenance with a dual tank; and side brushes to collect light debris.

ICE COBOTICS • ZEELAND, MICH. • ICECOBOTICS.COM

What’s Next for Vapor & Harm Reduction Products?

Tobacco thought leaders weigh in on key category issues impacting the near future

By Renée M. Covino

WHEN IT COMES to what awaits on the harm reduction horizon, there’s not much tobacco experts know for sure, except this: the industry must keep fighting the good fight to ensure consumers have access to combustible alternatives.

The U.S. regulatory system has been viewed as tobacco harm reduction’s greatest challenge and its best opportunity. This duality is expected to continue for the foreseeable future, according to a somewhat mixed bag of viewpoints expressed to Convenience Store News.

On the one hand, “the regulatory climate for vapor and harm reduction will continue to heat up,” foresees Bryan Haynes, a partner with the Troutman Pepper law firm and head of its tobacco law practice. This is best evidenced, he said, by recent happenings surrounding other areas of tobacco, including the Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) proposed product standards that would ban menthol in cigarettes and ban “characterizing flavors” in cigars. It is also evidenced by recent reports that the FDA is working on a rule mandating that all cigarettes have minimal or nonaddictive levels of nicotine.

The FDA’s ongoing actions around premarket applications for deemed tobacco products — which does directly involve vapor and harm reduction — will continue to be an area of interest, as will the courts’ decisions in litigation challenging the FDA’s determinations, according to Haynes.

of tobacco products to include nicotine from any source grants the FDA “a great deal of regulatory power over the industry, and the potential to remove e-cigarettes,” noted Cadent Consulting Group Managing Director Don Stuart, who also believes the tobacco regulatory climate will continue to heat up.

“Unfortunately, there will likely always be regulatory challenges with misinformation surrounding any nicotine product line, but we are always working to educate elected officials and regulators,” said Mary Elizabeth Barwick, vice president of strategic engagement for Reynolds Marketing Services Co. “In addition, many third parties and think tanks are educating people on all harm reduction policies that include nicotine.”

The Optimism

Even more promising, according to Barwick, is the growing recognition across media sources and among scientific experts on the value of tobacco harm reduction, as well as the idea that vapor, modern oral and other noncombustible tobacco/nicotine products may present significantly less risk than smoking.

“There is still a long way to go, but we believe this is the best option for adult consumers and migration away from combustibles to potentially less harmful products,” she said.

Moving forward, Don Burke, senior vice president of Management Science Associates Inc. (MSA), a Pittsburgh-based company focused on analytics and informatics, foresees the regulatory climate easing up for tobacco harm reduction and vapor.

“This may be a little too optimistic,” he admitted, “but I believe a more commonsense tobacco regulatory approach may ‘win the day’ in a year or two as regulators come to the realization that innovation in these two areas is critical to reducing harm.”

Furthermore, Burke believes the growing acceptance at the federal level of cannabis as a legal but controlled product category will have somewhat of a “halo effect” on tobacco regulation. “I think it may lead to a more logical reconsideration of other regulated products, particularly harm reduction and vapor items,” he said.

The Threats

What are the biggest threats to vapor and harm reduction products moving forward?

According to Barwick, “bans are the biggest threat and that comes from misinformation on the products and what they offer adult consumers. There is also a misunderstanding on how youth most commonly access nicotine products, which we know to be social sources,

“This may be a little too optimistic, but I believe a more commonsense tobacco regulatory approach may ‘win the day’ in a year or two as regulators come to the realization that innovation in these two areas is critical to reducing harm.”

“Unfortunately, there will likely always be regulatory challenges with misinformation surrounding any nicotine product line, but we are always working to educate elected officials and regulators.”

— Mary Elizabeth Barwick, Reynolds Marketing Services Co.

but we all need to take a hand in proper enforcement of youth access prevention measures to ensure adults are able to purchase these products.”

Haynes sees the requirement to obtain FDA authorization for new products as the industry’s biggest challenge, along with the FDA’s evolving standards for evaluating new product applications. At the same time, the FDA is not adequately enforcing the law with respect to companies that have introduced new products without submitting the necessary applications, according to Haynes.

“This operates as an unfortunate disincentive to innovate,” he said. “Complying with FDA premarket authorization requirements entails substantial time and expense. But if the FDA does not enforce those requirements against companies that choose to ignore them, it disincentivizes law-abiding companies from investing resources in the process.”

Cadent Consulting’s Stuart believes the biggest category challenges ahead are primarily related to teen marketing and teen usage. He pointed out that recent lawsuits involving teen targeting claims were settled and “there was no admission of any wrongdoing” on the part of vape suppliers. “This will continue to be a hot button issue,” he said.

There’s also the linkage of nicotine vapes to marijuana vapes posing a threat. “The inclusion of vitamin E acetate in vape pens was identified as an earlier issue and can further complicate the problem,” Stuart cautioned.

Additionally, there are industry naysayers who believe tobacco harm reduction is not good enough and the only acceptable solution to reduce harm for consumers is the total elimination of tobacco/nicotine items. “This is unrealistic,” Stuart asserted.

The Opportunities

Pending and future acquisitions of cigarette companies by vapor and harm reduction companies, as well as the increased focus on non-combustible tobacco alternatives that both suppliers and retailers are taking, present good opportunities for the category moving forward, industry experts agree. “It is reasonable to assume that there will be some consolidation,” Haynes stated.

This will open up the market for new, innovative harmreduction items, according to Burke. “It will also increase the U.S. competitive landscape for other manufacturers.”

Technology and innovation are the biggest opportunity drivers for the category moving forward, the way Barwick sees it. Together, they have the opportunity to provide adults with the information, the access and the ability to understand nicotine products and support possible migration to potentially reduced risk products.

“Gone are the days when we could expect consumers to learn about products through static paper point-of-sale marketing,” she said, adding that retailers and suppliers both have the opportunity to evolve their marketing to be more digitally savvy, as customers evolve in the same capacity. The innovative nature of the category lends itself to digitally dynamic marketing efforts.

Because regulation is so aligned with vapor and harm reduction products moving forward, it’s important for retailers to remain as engaged legislatively as possible — aligning themselves with suppliers — so they can help form the regulatory framework by providing industry perspectives, Barwick advised.

“This type of engagement is the best way to ensure that legislators and regulators have a comprehensive understanding of the issues, which should result in laws and regulations that are appropriately tailored and not necessarily burdensome on retailers or unnecessarily restrictive for adult nicotine consumers,” she said.

Reynolds is one supplier that has created a platform that provides a suite of tools and resources for retailers to remain informed and interact with elected officials.

For convenience store retailers that want to prepare for upcoming legislation in the category, Haynes’ chief piece of advice is: “Don’t panic.”

“Although the FDA has proposed — and apparently intends to propose — product standards that would have a significant impact on the industry, the rulemaking process takes a long time. It is reasonable to assume that it would be at least three years before any of these standards takes effect,” he noted.

Haynes goes on to explain that the FDA must consider stakeholder comments and the economic impact of any proposed regulations. And the law mandates that these standards cannot take effect for at least one year after they are finalized.

Furthermore, the FDA’s ability to finalize these rules is, by no means, certain. Depending on how the agency evaluates stakeholder comments, the rules could be withdrawn, changed or subject to litigation. CSN